navigating life as a wife and mother, while farming and homeschooling.

Lead By Example

Do you want your children to do chores daily? Tend to your responsibilities around the home.

Do you want your children to be patient? Practice patience.

Do you want your children to have manners? Exhibit manners.

Do you want your children to have compassion? Show compassion.

At the end of each day it is what we have done that matters. It is not the things we have said, or the lessons we teach out of a book that make a difference. Our children remember our actions.

Long after bedtime stories have ended and the building blocks are put away our children will remember how we spent our days. Did we love them? Did we lead them? Did we comfort them? Did we discipline them? What did we teach them with our day?

Don’t fool yourself, every day we are teaching our children. Our lives are our examples and the world is our classroom. You don’t need to have perfect patience, but instead show your children you are working on it, striving to be better. If your manners need work show your kids it is not too late to learn. It is never too late to learn the behaviors would like to see your children exhibit.

As a challenge consider this: think of one behavior that your children exhibit that you do not care for, just one. Now, how is that behavior either encouraged or exhibited in your life? By encouraged I mean do you cave to whining? Do you laugh when your child shows disrespect? Once you determine how it is exhibited in your life, start taking small steps to correct the behavior in yourself. You are leading your children by your behavior. You set the tone. If your children see their mother trying to improve this behavior I promise they will take notice.

***Have you ever noticed one of your habits coming through in your children? How did it make you feel to see that behavior or habit reflected in the next generation?***